TOPSHOT – Firemen prepare after a significant hearth swept via a number of residence blocks on the Wang Fuk Court docket residential property in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on November 27, 2025. Hong Kong firefighters had been scouring a still-burning residence advanced for a whole bunch of lacking individuals on November 27, a day after the blaze tore via the high-rises, killing not less than 44. (Picture by Dale DE LA REY / AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Dale De La Rey | Afp | Getty Photos
Hong Kong authorities mentioned on Monday they’d arrested 13 individuals for suspected manslaughter in a probe into town’s deadliest hearth in many years, pointing to substandard renovation supplies for fueling a blaze that has claimed not less than 151 lives. Police continued to brush the seven burnt-out towers engulfed in Wednesday’s catastrophe on the Wang Fuk Court docket property, discovering our bodies of residents in stairwells and on rooftops, trapped as they tried to flee the flames.
Greater than 40 persons are nonetheless lacking. “A few of the our bodies have changed into ash, due to this fact we’d not have the ability to find all lacking people,” police official Tsang Shuk-yin advised reporters, choking up with emotion. Assessments on a number of samples of a inexperienced mesh that was wrapped round bamboo scaffolding on the buildings on the time of the blaze didn’t match fire-retardant requirements, officers overseeing the investigations advised a information convention.
Contractors engaged on the renovations used these substandard supplies in hard-to-reach areas, successfully hiding them from inspectors, mentioned Chief Secretary Eric Chan.
Foam insulation utilized by contractors additionally fanned the flames and hearth alarms on the advanced weren’t working correctly, officers have mentioned. Hundreds have turned out to pay tribute to the victims, who embrace not less than 9 home helpers from Indonesia and one from the Philippines, with traces of mourners stretching greater than a kilometer (a half-mile) alongside a canal subsequent to the property.
Vigils are additionally on account of happen this week in Tokyo, London and Taipei, authorities mentioned. Amid pockets of public anger over missed hearth threat warnings, Beijing has warned it could crack down on any “anti-China” protests. At the very least one individual concerned in a petition calling for an unbiased probe and a evaluate of development oversight amongst different calls for was detained for round two days, sources acquainted with the matter mentioned. Police have declined to touch upon the case. Hong Kong Safety Chief Chris Tang additionally declined to touch upon particular operations at a press convention on Monday.
“I’ve seen that some individuals with malicious intent, aiming to hurt Hong Kong and nationwide safety, have taken benefit of this painful second for society,” he mentioned.
“Due to this fact, we should take applicable motion, together with enforcement measures.”
Search strikes to worst-affected buildings
The buildings being scoured for stays are the worst broken and the search might take weeks, authorities have mentioned.
Photos shared by police confirmed officers clad in hazmat fits, face masks and helmets, inspecting rooms with blackened partitions and furnishings lowered to ashes, and wading via water used to douse fires that raged for days.
Throngs of officers arrived on the website early on Monday morning to proceed their search of the burnt-out buildings.
The residence blocks had been dwelling to greater than 4,000 individuals, in response to census information, and people who escaped should now attempt to get their lives again on monitor.
Greater than 1,100 individuals have been moved out of evacuation facilities into non permanent housing, with an additional 680 put up in youth hostels and lodges, authorities mentioned.
With many residents forsaking belongings as they fled, authorities have supplied emergency funds of HK$10,000 ($1,284) to every family and offered particular help for issuing new identification playing cards, passports and marriage certificates.
Deadliest blaze since 1948
Residents of Wang Fuk Court docket had been advised by authorities final yr they confronted “comparatively low hearth dangers” after complaining about hearth hazards posed by the renovations, town’s Labour Division mentioned.
The residents raised issues in September 2024, together with in regards to the potential flammability of the mesh contractors used to cowl the scaffolding, a division spokesperson mentioned.
Hong Kong’s deadliest hearth since 1948, when 176 individuals died in a warehouse blaze, has surprised town, the place legislative elections are on account of be held this weekend.
On Saturday, police detained Miles Kwan, 24, a part of a bunch that launched a petition demanding an unbiased probe into attainable corruption and a evaluate of development oversight, two individuals acquainted with the matter mentioned. Reuters couldn’t set up whether or not he had been arrested.
Kwan left a police station in a taxi on Monday afternoon, in response to a Reuters witness.
Two others have additionally since been arrested on suspicion of seditious intent, the South China Morning Publish mentioned. The police declined to touch upon these reported arrests.
China’s nationwide safety workplace warned people on Saturday in opposition to utilizing the catastrophe to “plunge Hong Kong again into the chaos” of 2019, when huge pro-democracy protests challenged Beijing and triggered a political disaster.
“We sternly warn the anti-China disruptors who try and ‘disrupt Hong Kong via catastrophe’,” the workplace mentioned in an announcement. “It doesn’t matter what strategies you utilize, you’ll definitely be held accountable and strictly punished.”
